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After causing an uproar, she later apologised on social media, tweeting she was "deeply sorry".

Later, while addressing an audience as chairwoman of the Wellcome Book Prize, she said: "I naively participated in a speculative conversation, expressing off-the-cuff remarks, without reference to evidence or current thinking.

"Now that has caused enormous upset and I am deeply distressed that it should have caused so much pain."

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Baroness Joan Bakewell

But comedienne Jenny Eclair, who battled the illness herself, also supported the baroness' views.

Ms Eclair, 55, who was anorexic in the late Seventies and Eighties, said her condition had been down to “self-obsession and sheer panic”.

Despite the outrage she caused, Baroness Bakewell said more research and information should stem from her stoking public debate on the issue.